The Twelve Dates of Christmas

by Catherine Hapka

  I couldn’t resist peeking out the window as Cam and Jaylene emerged onto the sidewalk just outside. She said something. He laughed and put his arm around her. She snuggled up to him, her little white mittens sneaking their way around his waist. Smile, smile, kiss . . .

  And this is where we came in. Their spontaneous, romantic kiss hit me like a punch to the gut. What had I been thinking all these weeks? All this time, the idea of Cam—my Cam—with another girl had seemed somehow speculative and theoretical. Like a science hypothesis waiting to be proved or one of Allie’s crazy theories being tested in a double-blind study.

  But now that the result was standing right there in front of me, kissing on a snowy evening beneath the twinkling holiday lights, I somewhat belatedly realized the truth.

  I was still in love with Cam.

  Yep, there was no denying it any longer. Stuck in a rut, opposites attract and all, I still loved him. All the logic in the world couldn’t change that. Which meant, of course, that I’d just made the stupidest mistake of my life.

  Was it too late to fix it?

  I’m not sure how I survived the rest of my date with Andrew. For one thing, I was already calling him Annoying Andrew in my head—I had to be really careful not to slip and say it out loud. Somehow, I didn’t think he would have the sense of humor to handle something like that very well.

  But that was far from my worst problem. Being with Andrew, and with Bruce before him, had only showed me what I would be missing if I couldn’t figure out how to make things right with Cam. Okay, so maybe that spark had faded a bit over the years between Cam and me. But I couldn’t imagine ever feeling the spark at all with those two guys. Or with anyone else, for that matter.

  No, the grass definitely wasn’t greener for me. But what about for Cam? Based on that kiss I’d just witnessed, I wasn’t too sure.

  “Here we are.” Andrew pulled to a stop at the curb in front of my house. As I unhooked my seat belt, he leaped out of the car and raced around the front of it like a demented rabbit, slipping a little on the rapidly freezing slush on the road. Then he opened my door with a flourish.

  “Thanks,” I said, climbing out without taking the hand he held out to help me. I didn’t want to give him any ideas.

  Unfortunately, he already seemed to have them. After he’d closed the car door behind me, he hurried to catch up as I headed up the front walk. He slung one arm around my shoulders, squeezing a bit.

  I resisted the urge to elbow him in the ribs. Instead, I waited until we reached the porch steps and then scooted up them quickly, managing to extricate myself from his arm in the process. He was a smart guy, and I hoped he’d take the hint.

  But no. He climbed the steps after me and watched as I fished my house key out of my purse. My mind wandered back to a similar but oh-so-different wintry evening about four years earlier. Cam and I had just returned from our first real date—skating on the lake—and I’d been digging in my coat pocket for my key. It had been an amazing evening, and I hadn’t wanted it to end. Cam and I had skated and talked and laughed and had a great time. I still remembered the tingle I’d felt, even through my wool gloves, when he’d shyly reached over to hold my hand as we’d glided along side by side across the ice and everything had felt so romantic and new. . . .

  “This was fun,” Andrew said, snapping me back to the here and now. “We should do it again sometime.”

  “Sure, maybe.” I finally found the key and pulled it out. “Although with the holidays and all, I’m sure we’ll both be kind of busy, right? Anyway, thanks for dinner.”

  “You’re very welcome.”

  I glanced up to say good-bye. My eyes widened in alarm as I saw his eyes sort of squeeze half-shut and his lips go all poofy and start moving toward me like a heat-seeking missile. Yeah, so much for picking up my hints. He was going in for the goodnight kiss.

  I quickly turned my head, deflecting him just in time. The kiss landed on my cheek instead of its intended target.

  “Well, good night, then,” I said as cheerfully as I could manage, stepping back and reaching for the door.

  He opened his eyes and licked his lips, looking startled. “Oh,” he said. “Um . . .”

  But I didn’t wait around to hear any more. Quickly stepping inside, I shut the door behind me without looking back.

  The next day my mom asked me to run out to the mall to pick up some stuff she needed for her next food committee meeting. While I was there, I stopped in at the department store to see if Allie had time to talk. To my surprise, she wasn’t there. Normally she worked every weekend day between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. The place was packed, and her coworkers were so frantic in their quest to wrap snowflake-print paper and curly red ribbons around everything in sight that I didn’t even bother trying to ask them why Allie wasn’t working. Instead, I just stopped off at her house on my way home.

  “Hi, Lexi,” Allie’s mother greeted me when she opened the door. Mrs. Lin looked exactly like Allie would probably look in thirty years, right down to the tiny ponytail. “Nice to see you. Have you heard anything about that Simpson Scholarship yet? Allie tells me you’ll probably win it this year.”

  “No, no word yet. You know how it is—Mrs. Simpson always likes to keep everyone in suspense for a while.” I chuckled along with Mrs. Lin. “Um, is Allie home?”

  “Oh, sure.” She waved me inside. “She and Nick are in the den.”

  I blinked, a bit surprised to learn that my cousin was there. Allie and Nick hung out all the time, of course, but usually only when I was around. It was kind of like I was the oxygen atom in our water molecule of friendship.

  “They’re working on the decorations for the kiddie room at the Ball,” Allie’s mother added, ushering me toward the cozy den at the back of the house.

  That explained it, then. Sure enough, when I entered the den it looked as if one of Santa’s elves had exploded in there. Red and green paper scraps covered every available surface, from the burgundy carpet to the leather couch to Allie’s shiny black hair. I wondered how Nick—or more likely, Nick’s mom—had suckered her into helping with this one. Every year, while everyone over the age of twelve danced the night away in the main room, the younger kids gathered in the upstairs section of the fireman’s hall under the supervision of a fleet of paid out-of-town babysitters for an evening of Christmas cookies, sing-alongs, naps, stories, tantrums, and games. They also had their own decorations up there, mostly consisting of paper garlands, Christmassy cutouts, and other nontoxic-if-eaten-or-licked items. Preparing that stuff for a bunch of sugar-hyped sprogs wasn’t anyone’s favorite task on the decorations committee.

  Allie and Nick were bent over a sheet of construction paper together. They both looked up in surprise when I walked in and said hello.

  “Lexi!” Allie exclaimed, jumping to her feet and brushing her hair out of her face. “What are you doing here? I mean, I was going to call you and see if you wanted to come help us with this stuff, but I figured you had that date last night and probably wanted to sleep in, plus I know you’ve got that last application essay to finish and then that paper for history class, so . . .”

  She was babbling, probably out of sheer boredom. Or maybe the Elmer’s glue had gone to her head. Either way, I brushed aside her torrent of explanations.

  “I’m glad you guys are both here,” I said. “I need to talk to you about something. It’s important.”

  “Uh-oh,” Nick joked. “The last time you said something like that, you’d decided to break up with Cam. Let me guess—this time you’re breaking up with the two of us, right?”

  “Very funny.” Even though my mind was pretty much filled to capacity with my own problems, I couldn’t help realizing that he sounded almost back to normal lately. At least Rachel hadn’t broken him forever. “But I’m serious. I think I’ve made a colossal mistake.”

  Allie cocked her head. “Wait. Did you end up going out to dinner last night with Andrew?”

  “Uh-huh.”
I’d scooted back into the department store the afternoon before to let her know about that invitation. “Let’s just say it didn’t go well. In more ways than one . . .”

  Flopping down onto the leather sofa, I quickly filled them in on the whole evening. Nick let out a low whistle when I told them about seeing Cam and Jaylene at the restaurant, and Allie gasped with horror when I (briefly) described their kiss.

  “So anyway,” I finished, “I realize now that I was wrong. Cam is the guy for me. I never should have decided to end things with him.” I took a deep breath. “So go ahead. Say it. You told me so, right?”

  “Well, now that you mention it . . . ,” Nick began.

  Allie shut him up with a punch to the upper arm. “Don’t,” she said. “You know Lexi. She doesn’t admit she’s wrong very often, mostly because she isn’t wrong very often. We don’t want to make her feel any worse about being so, so, so wrong this time.” She smiled at me. “But anyway, why are you here telling us about this? You should be at Cam’s house right now getting back together with him!”

  “What? It’s not that simple.”

  “Sure it is,” Nick urged, leaning back against the edge of an overstuffed armchair. “Cam’s a reasonable guy. So you throw yourself at his feet, tell him you were an idiot, then kiss and make up.”

  Allie nodded vigorously. “Just be honest with him, and see if he’ll consider trying again. I’m sure he will.”

  I sat up so fast that the sofa squeaked. “Are you insane? I can’t tell him the truth about all the idiotic stuff I did to make this happen.” I grimaced, feeling my cheeks go hot as I thought about all the deceptive tricks I’d pulled over the past couple of months. How could I have been such a fool? “He’d never understand,” I added sadly. “He’s so honest and straightforward—he’d probably never forgive or respect me ever again if he found out how I finagled the end of our relationship. Then I wouldn’t even have him as a friend anymore, let alone anything more. And I really couldn’t stand that.”

  “But you can’t give up, Lexi!” Allie cried. “You have to get him back.”

  “Yeah,” Nick said. “It’s not like you to give up, Lex. That’s why Dad always calls you the family go-getter.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not giving up,” I told them. “I’m just saying I need to figure out the best way to handle this.”

  Allie looked dubious. “Well, you’d better hurry up and figure it out soon,” she said. “Dozen Dates Theory, remember?”

  Nick let out a snort. Clearly he’d heard about Allie’s latest theory as well.

  Allie shot him an irritated glance. “Anyway, I still think you can do it. Right now you’ve still got time on your side. See, I’ve been working out more of the theory lately, and there’s something I’m calling the Nostalgia Footnote. That means that, as the recent ex, you still have the advantage of all the memories you two have together. But the closer you get to that dozen dates mark, the less weight that kind of thing—”

  “Hold it,” I interrupted, tapping my fingers on the arm of the sofa. “I think you might be on to something there with the nostalgia thing, Allie.”

  “Really?” She looked surprised and kind of delighted. And no wonder. That was probably the most enthusiastic response I’d ever given to one of her theories. “Well, I mean, sure I am. So if you just confess everything to Cam right now, his memories of your past together should totally overcome any weirdness about, you know, your methods.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean.” I leaned forward and gazed thoughtfully at my cousin. “Hey Nick, I just realized your birthday’s coming up in, like, a week.”

  “Let me guess. This is your way of warning me to expect an IOU instead of a real present again this year?”

  Poor Nick was always getting shafted on the whole birthday-present thing. I guess that happens when your big day is too close to the big day. And like I said, in Claus Lake the entire autumn season is probably too close. Oh, and just in case it’s not obvious, that’s how Nick got his name. After all, being born in December in Claus Lake, what other name could he have?

  “Don’t worry,” I told him. “Your birthday gift is already wrapped and waiting in a secret location in my house. But I was just thinking, shouldn’t we all do something special to celebrate?”

  He cocked one eyebrow suspiciously. “Why do I have the feeling this idea isn’t coming from a genuine burst of cousinly love?”

  “Of course it is.” I grinned. “Then again, I’ve always been a multitasker, right? See, I was just thinking, how about if you invite the whole gang out ice-skating on the lake next weekend?”

  “Hmm.” Nick picked a sparkly bit of paper off his sleeve and flicked it across the room. “Could be fun, I guess. Plus that way nobody will be able to forget my birthday for once. But what’s in it for you? You realize I’ll have to invite Jaylene, too, right?”

  I shrugged. “That’s okay. She’s from Georgia—she probably can’t even skate. With any luck she’ll spend most of her time drinking hot chocolate on shore and Cam and I can reminisce about the first time we went skating together.”

  “Ooh, I remember that.” Allie smiled. “It sounded totally romantic.”

  “It was. So maybe being out there on the lake together will remind Cam of that night—you know, get that nostalgia thing working for me. If you guys are right and he wants me back too, that could be all it takes to kick-start a reconciliation—no messy confessions required.” I shrugged. “If I play my cards right, Cam and I could be a couple again in plenty of time for the Ball. We can wear the funny front-and-back-halves-of-a-reindeer costume he picked out, and everything will be back to normal.”

  “Okay, what the hell. Let’s do it,” Nick said. “I’ll start calling people tonight.”

  “Call Cam first, okay?” I urged. “There’s not much point if he can’t make it.”

  Nick snorted. “Right. No point at all.”

  Allie giggled. “Don’t worry, Nick, she’s crazed with jealousy—she doesn’t know what she’s saying.” She turned to me. “But Lexi, even if this works, you’re right back where you started. You know, that fabulous mismatched future you were so worried about before . . .”

  That had been nagging at the back of my mind too. But I was trying to keep it back there for now.

  “I know,” I said. “But I’ll just have to worry about that once I’m back with Cam.”

  “Brrr,” Bruce complained. “Nick, dude, why’d you have to have your birthday at the coldest time of the year?”

  “Don’t be an idiot.” I looked up from lacing my left skate, quickly tucking my bare fingers into my armpits in a vain attempt to thaw them enough to lace up the other skate. “If his birthday was in July, we wouldn’t exactly be celebrating with an ice-skating party, would we?”

  Still, he kind of had a point. It was cold. Really cold. Not that it’s ever exactly balmy in Wisconsin in December, but it’s usually not Siberia, either. But just my luck—a front had rolled in the night before and it was downright frigid, with a bitter wind gusting in and howling around the edges of the lake, shaking the latest snowfall off the tops of the pines. At the moment we were all still huddled around the benches and snow-covered pathways by the skating inlet, even though most of us had arrived at least ten or fifteen minutes earlier. Nobody seemed too eager to leave the relative shelter of the shoreline and hit the open ice.

  But the weather wasn’t the main reason I was feeling kind of tense. Cam hadn’t even arrived yet, and I was already wondering if this had been a stupid idea. Nick hadn’t been able to reach Cam on Sunday night. He’d tracked him down as soon as he could in school on Monday, but the best he’d been able to get from Cam was an “I’ll let you know.” Cam hadn’t given him an answer until Tuesday morning, which meant Nick hadn’t been able to start asking other people until after that. By then a large chunk of the guest list already had plans for Saturday afternoon. Then a few more had canceled because of the weather. Wimps.

  So that left a
pretty small group. Me. Nick. Allie. Bruce. Two giggly girls from Nick’s music class. And finally, Cam and Jaylene—if they ever showed up. Now, normally Cam wasn’t the type of guy to cancel at the last minute. If he committed to be somewhere, he was there, come hell, high water, or subzero windchill factor. But now that Jaylene was in the picture, I was starting to wonder if he was still as predictable as I’d always thought. After all, I never would have expected that impulsive, snowy kiss the other night, either. . . .

  Ripping my mind away from that unwelcome image, I stood up, brushed some snow off my black Polartec pants, and surveyed our paltry group. When I’d come up with this idea, I’d envisioned Jaylene lost in crowds of people out on the ice, giving me free rein to zero in on Cam and work the nostalgia angle. After all, Nick had tons of friends, which meant his parties normally resembled New Year’s Eve in Times Square. But with only eight of us, it wasn’t going to be so easy to cut Cam loose from the herd. Still, Allie and Nick had promised to run interference for me if they could. I was just going to have to make the best of it.

  I finished my laces, then sat up and pulled my warmest gloves back on. That made my hands feel a little less like blocks of ice, though it didn’t help my face, which had gone numb. Who needs Botox when you have an Arctic air mass?

  Nick already had his skates on. He was swinging his arms back and forth, trying to stay warm as he waited for the rest of us to finish getting ready. “Hey Bruce,” he said, “where’s your man Cam? Thought he said he’d be here.”

  Good question. I wanted to check my watch, but it was hidden under three or four layers of clothing.

  Bruce was sitting on a bench playing snowplow with his skate blades in a handy drift. “Yeah, he’ll be along. Probably late though. That new girlfriend of his takes forever getting ready to go out.” He stood up and sidled over to me. Even with a frozen face, he could still leer. Amazing. “Guess she’s not the natural woman type like you, eh, Lexi?”